Baltimore Police Department

Officer Involved Shootings

Baltimore police officers respond to roughly 3,300 calls for service every day. The overwhelming majority of these calls are handled without significant incident. Unfortunately, while fulfilling the duty to serve and protect, officers sometimes encounter life-threatening situations, resulting in the use of deadly force to protect themselves and/or other citizens.

Deadly force is to be used only in the most extreme circumstances and when all lesser means of force have failed or could not be reasonably employed. Visit the BPD website for more information on how the department investigates these types of incidents.

The data on these pages is taken from incident reports in BPD's nine patrol districts. Details of past incidents may change over time based upon further investigation, administrative process, or when human or mechanical error is discovered and corrected. Please contact BPD if you have any questions.

Table of Contents

Officer Involved Shootings by Month

These are the number of officer involved shootings by month over the past year. An officer involved shooting is the accidental or intentional discharge of a firearm at a person by a police officer, whether on duty or off duty.

Officer Involved Shootings by Assignment

Baltimore Police Department tracks where officer involved shootings occur within its nine patrol districts, as well as several other assignments that have specific functions related to investigations, enforcement and training.

Officer Demographics

Baltimore City is home to more than 621,000 people and is served by the nation’s 8th largest police department. Baltimore Police Department has almost 2,600 sworn officers.

Officer Involved Shootings by Officer and Resident Race

This chart shows the races or ethnicities of the officers and residents involved in officer involved shootings over the past 12 months. Bold numbers show total percentages across all incidents; numbers where rows and columns meet represent incidents where officers and residents in those demographics were involved in the same incident.